Following a ruling that was made in 2019, AC Milan and over 20 other Serie A clubs are claiming billions of euros in damages for the wrongful sale of the league’s TV rights. Whether this attempt will be successful, however, is a different question.
As told by Calcio e Finanza, the dispute stems from a ruling that was made by the Italian Competition Authority in 2019 and resulted in heavy fines. It was found that the TV rights companies IMG, MP & Silva and Be4 colluded by coordinating their bids to limit the competition, more specifically from 2008 to 2018.
This ruling prompted almost a dozen of Serie A clubs, including AC Milan, and the league itself to sue the companies in a Milan court. The league has made a request for €1.8 billion ($2 billion) in damages due to the lost revenue, while the request of the clubs is more than €3 billion.
Experts of the court have been appointed and will assess the requests by April 2025, as well as deem whether Serie A and the clubs have a case to begin with. Serie A also attempted to reach an out-of-court settlement but as this was unsuccessful, the league is now considering handing over its rights to compensation to specialised investment funds to bring money to the clubs faster.
Both claims remain for now, though, and IMG have expressed their innocence on the matter. As for MP & Silva, the company liquidated in 2018 while B4 Capital is in the process of liquidating.
“Whether this attempt will be successful, however, is a different question.”
Stop reading after that if you value your time and you are only here hoping that Milan will have money for better transfers .
It’s an interesting story regardless, though, since the Italian Competition Authority confirmed the companies did collude
On a personal level as a Milan fan I hope they lose the case, we want Inter and other seria a rivals to be worst off and not be financially healthy like us because we have had parameters to to cap our salaries and transfers and missed out on European competitions, but the others have offered big wages, done big transfers even knowing about FFP.
Why should they get a shot in the arm with this compensation, we have suffered so I want us to maintain the current status quo, with us not being forced to sell and they have too.
This is my honest opinion….
A weak Serie A is bad for the resale value of the club, which is the only thing this ownership is interested in.
And this is petty. You don’t want to beat a weak Inter. You want Milan to be a strong team able to beat a strong Inter.
This time you say positive thing bartho. Serie a must become stronger in term of financial . For long english club and spanish club dominating CL making it so boring. Italian club need to step up increase their financial to strenghten their squad beat spanish & english club domination. It is not only depend to ACM but also juve ,IM, Roma
The outcome of this story is about a thousand times more important than any transfer window. The sooner you realize that sport is the business of entertainment above all else, the less bitter you will be. Stop romanticizing it. Watch, be entertained, and enjoy. Don’t like that the club are doing? Feel free to support another club. It’s exhausting reading comments of people who live in a fantasy world.
Flossonero don’t tell us what to do we support milan we don’t support this stingy management/owners we must show them we don’t like what they’re doing to our beloved club
What have they done so far except a second place finish and drastically increase our revenues and sporting influence?
You don’t like what you THINK they are doing, or what you PREDICT will be the outcomes of their actions. You have one season to go on when the club finished second and they replaced the coach because they were not satisfied. What exactly is your beef? Do you even know? Spare me the romantic sentiment of how “football should be”….
Yeah man if you don’t understand what’s going on after so many interviews with Jerry speaking to investors about ROI and how winning is boring, or now saying Milan is focused on the US market, or Scaroni saying Milan competes for 4th, maybe you need to rethink about it. I don’t know for how long you’ve been supporting Milan but it’s no longer the club most of us were rooting for.
Oh wow this is interesting to say the least..and the company they are suing is liquidating. better act fast
From 2008 to 2018. The same period when Serie A went from the best league in the world, to a league on the same level as the Uber eats league.
During the same period EPL, because of their great TV rights deal, became a super league.
But in Italy they are too busy blaming the foreign owners.
“Newcastle director Amanda Staveley (3 years ago):
We looked at AC Milan and Inter Milan with PIF, but the problem was that the structure of the league was a mess. Not interested anymore.”
This. From how they split TV revenue, to having three or four different courts to adjudicate matters, three or four sporting organizations to decide sporting issues, various governments needed to approve building a new toilet in the stadium, let alone a new stadium, etc. I love Italy, but for doing business it’s a sh!tshow. Finally, the market for the EPL was always much larger than that for Serie A. Say what you will about the British Empire, but the fact that all of the former colonies, USA included, are oriented towards Anglo culture/England makes them all markets receptive to the EPL. People from all over Asia, Africa and North America have always supported English clubs, and that has grown exponentially since Ruppert Murdoch recognized this and he gave the EPL the first billion euro TV deal 20 years ago. The other top European leagues just don’t have that market penetration.
Tv rights are a hassle. It’s good that the clubs get money but it sucks for the customers that it’s getting more and more expensive. For example to see Premier leagues official broadcasts here in Sweden you need to pay between 64-83 dollars / month depending on which package you get. To see both Serie a and La Liga and CL ”only” cost 37 dollars / month last sesson. This year noone even owns the rights to Serie A. So I have no idea how to see the games this season other than to see them on some other crappy stream from maybe italy or England…
The biggest loser in the organization has spoken